Category: Cartoon

One of the first things I did when I got to the states in 97 was hunt for this album, the soundtrack to Transformers the Movie. The movie was great, and the soundtrack made it even better. I’m gonna list down my fave tracks in order of appearance in the movie.

The first track didn’t actually appear in the album, but is worth mentioning because it’s awesome:

Who can forget that opening scene with Unicron showing what he could do to a planet.

The next track takes place when the Decepticons attacked the Autobot shuttle:

This song was quite appropriate for the scene coz the Decepticons were tearing apart the Autobots. I was quite upset though coz they took out some of my fave Autobots. Oh well.

Next track was Hot Rod’s scene, and I consider this Hot Rod’s theme song for the movie. It’s played again later on when they’re attacking Unicron.

The nice part was when they synchronized the chorus with when Hot Rod rammed the roadblock.

For the next track, enjoy the video of the scene that shows how badass Optimus was.

Again, credit to the people who picked the songs for choosing something really appropriate for the scene. This song is also played again towards the end of the movie.

Next song from the underwater scene after the shuttle crashes on Quintessa.

Nevermind the fact that there’s water on a planet with no atmosphere, this scene was still awesome.

Last track, from the part when Hot Rod and Kup fight the Sharkticons:

The part when Slag (or Slug as they call him now) and says “Excuse me” is just priceless.

Nowadays, the only cartoon I watch is Star Wars Rebels, but when I was growing up, man, there were tons of cartoons that I watched. So this post is dedicated to the ones I liked.

Transformers

Naturally, the first one on the list is my fave cartoon of all time, Transformers.

This is one cartoon that should have lasted longer, too bad the popularity of this series was driven by the merchandise, and when all the licensing issues got in the way, the cartoon had to stop. I had a bunch of Transformers toys, never got Megatron or Optimus Prime though, but I did have Starscream, the Aerialbots and the Stunticons. I had Jazz also but he was sold off to my brother’s friend some years back. The deal was too good to say no to, plus I did need the cash anyway. The rest of my collection is somewhere at my parents’ place, provided my brother hasn’t sold it all off already, hahaha.

Anyway, back in the day, when I first got hooked on Transformers, they weren’t showing it on TV yet so I had to rely on the videos I rented from the video store (remember those? Can’t find them anymore). Was so happy when they finally started showing it on TV. It was so difficult to watch stuff back then, if you had no VCR with timer recording capabilities, you’d end up missing everything.

I really loved this series, watched all episodes, bought the novels, comics, sourcebooks, everything. This is another cartoon that came to an abrupt end due to various issues. Up till today, they’re still trying to sort out what happened after Scott Bernard left earth, and there’s been various versions.They’ve also been talking bout making a live-action movie for years. Nothing in sight yet though despite all the talk.

GI Joe, another popular 80s cartoon, and also another one of my faves. There’s been several GI Joe cartoons but nothing beats the original.

The only thing I didn’t like about this series was the use of “lasers” instead of normal ammunition, but since it was a cartoon, they had to make it child-friendly. Wonder how lasers are considered child-friendly though.This cartoon was made into a live-action movie, but the less said about that the better.

If you have time, do look out for the GI Joe comics, some of those were really good, and there’s been various incarnations of the comics with various storylines. Snake Eyes is always deadly in all of them though.

Another series that was very much toy-driven, and another series that died out when toy sales went down. I still have my MASK toys at my parents’ place actually, unless my brother has sold it off or something. Probably worth quite a bit now. Must say that the MASK toys were one of the better designed toys out there. Most of what you saw on TV was replicated nicely to the toy (unlike the Transformers toys that had such huge disparity in sizes). The only thing you didn’t have was the mask dropping on the driver’s head, haha. I remember one episode, was a bit funny seeing the mask drop down on the motorcycle (Condor) rider’s head.

Read more about it here. You can also read my earlier post about MASK here.

Thundercats

Another series I diligently watched, and another that was also quite toy driven. The only difference between this and other toy-driven series was that Thundercats actually had a real good story line. The toy was a bit crappy though, too big, too chunky, and too rigid.

I loved this cartoon, good story lines, and not too cheesy. Peter Cullen was also the voice of the ship, Ramrod. That name sound familiar? Heh. I remember the first time I heard Ramrod speak during the transformation sequence. I knew who the voice belonged to and I made it a point to look through the credits to see if I was right, and when I saw the name, I knew I was. This series was another one that was originally done in Japan under a diff name and concept and turned into something different (and better) in the US.

Ah, MASK, short for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand, one of the cartoon series I enjoyed back in the day. Comics Alliance has written a great article on MASK. You can check out the article here. Do watch the video that they put up.

I still have some of my old MASK toys at my parents’ place, will probably just leave it there, my wife already complains that I have too much “junk” at home.

Must find time to write bout the other cartoons I enjoyed watching while growing up. Anyway, links below as usual.